Posts Tagged ‘The Gift’

If you missed it the last time, I’m very excited to announce another FREE taste of my critically acclaimed novel, The Pet Shop! Alongside the original novel, The Pet Shop is now being offered by Xcite in a limited Kindle three-part edition. The second part, The Secret Life of Pets, is once again available for FREE for five days on Amazon from the 24th April through the 28th. And, since Xcite are only too aware that Pets are addicting, to help feed your addiction for hot kinky romance, Part One, The Gift, and Part Three, The Taming, are just £.77 each in the UK and $1.19 in the US.

(Just a quick reminder. If you’re an early bird on the other side of the Pond, the U.S. link may be available a few hours later than the UK link because of the time change.)

Here’s a little teaser of what you’ll find in The Secret Life of Pets. Download your copy FREE, and you’ll find out what the secret is.

Blurb:

Obsessed with finding out about Tino and his connection with Vincent Evanston, Stella enters the secret world of the Pet Shop in the only way possible, by becoming a Pet herself. As her animal lust awakens, Stella discovers the delicious crossover of the world of Pets and Keepers when Vincent takes her home as his Pet. But Stella wants the best of both worlds. Will she ever be able to have it?

Excerpt:

Stella was still struggling to make sense of it all when the door opened. She could see a silhouette darkened against the moonlit sky before the door closed, then there were footsteps across the complaining wood floor and the Boss knelt beside her with a leash, which he clipped into the D-ring of her collar and held her gaze. He stood without saying a word, and she stood next to him, her legs suddenly unsteady. Was she going to have sex with him? Not that he wasn’t an attractive man, but he was her boss and sex would add another complication she didn’t need. He led her out into the night, back along a narrow pavement, down a steep set of stairs and through a heavy wooden door.

Before she had a chance to get frightened, the Boss flipped on a light switch and a cavernous room immerged out of the shadow into details she failed to notice. Her whole attention was drawn to the pallet on the floor in the corner where Tino lay naked, blinking hard at the bright invasion on light-deprived pupils. He yawned and stretched and wiped sleep from his eyes. When he saw her, he came to his feet expectantly. As always, it was impossible for her not to notice his lovely penis, already at half-mast and rising. He laid a hand against it, not like he was about to masturbate, more like he was taking the reins of a powerful animal.

The Boss chuckled softly. ‘I can almost hear your fear and anger, Stella, and I assure you there’s no need for either. This is where Tino sleeps whenever he’s here. Not sure why he prefers the dungeon to far more plush places in which a Pet of his status could sleep. Perhaps because he spends so much time down here anyway being punished for bad behaviour, and I assure you, he gets far less than he deserves. He unhooked the leash and nodded toward the big Pet. ‘Go on. If the two of you were magnets it would be easier to keep him from you.’

It was all she could do to keep from crying out his name as he scooped her into his arms. Any further slippage of speech was stopped by Tino’s insistent mouth startling in its familiarity. Her throat tightened and her eyes welled, as he took her face between large hands and kissed her repeatedly, ravenously, as though he would never stop. But when he did, it was because they had both become once again aware that the Boss was still standing there, arms folded across his chest, watching.

When they stood staring at him expectantly, he pulled out a metal folding chair and sat down deliberately. ‘Oh, I’m not leaving, if that’s what you’re waiting for. I did scheme to get the two of you together, that’s true.’ He waved a hand. ‘And I expect you to do whatever nasty things your libidos drive you to, but I expect you to do them while I watch.’

He turned his gaze on Stella, whose insides suddenly twisted in a writhe of nerves. ‘My dear Stella, as a Pet, you’ll often be called upon by your keepers to perform sexually for them while they watch and have a wank.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes they only do that until they get up their courage to join in the fun. Other times they really are voyeurs and get off on the watching more than the doing.

‘Me, I don’t need courage to join in the fun, which I may well do if I choose. But after what happened between you two this morning, I haven’t had a minute’s peace imagining the fireworks that must happen when the two of you actually are allowed to fuck.’ He sighed happily and settled back into the chair as though it were the most comfy recliner. ‘All I need now is some popcorn. Consider this a part of your training, Stella, and who better to help you with your homework than someone who’s an old hand at it.’ He nodded to Tino.

She expected at least an awkward moment or two to adjust to the idea of fucking with an audience, but Tino simply ignored the Boss’s presence.He lifted her as though she were weightless and carried her back to his pallet.

If you missed out the last time around, not to worry, because I’m very pleased to announce that Xcite are once again offering a free taste of my critically acclaimed novel, The Pet Shop! The first part of the limited edition Kindle trilogy, The Gift is available FREE for the next five days on Amazon beginning Wednesday 20th March. Xcite are very aware of just how addicting Pets can be, Part Two, The Secret Life of Pets, and Part Three, The Taming, are just £.77 each in the UK and $1.19 in the US. The only thing better than a naughty Pet of your very own is a FREE naughty Pet of your very own. If you want your Pets in an all-at-once, rough and tumble, you can still get the whole package of lusty, kinky Pet fun with the original.

The Gift Blurb:

In appreciation for a job well done, Stella James’s boss sends her a Pet – a human Pet. The mysterious Tino arrives equipped with a collar a leash and an erection, and Stella quickly learns that keeping Pets, especially this one, is extremely addictive. Will a chance meeting with reclusive philanthropist, Vincent Evanston, who looks an awful lot like Tino, but couldn’t be more different, double Stella’s pleasure or just be double trouble?

AboutThe Pet Shop

The Pet Shop is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In part, the theme of the story is our effort to understand the beast that lives within all of us, to tame it and make it acceptable to polite company. Of course in the taming of anything wild we run the risk of losing that wildness that compelled us to love it in the first place. The Pet Shop explores the effort to find a balance between the two.

I’ve always been fascinated with our animal nature, and I’ve often wondered how much of that nature is ancestral behaviours reasserting themselves and how much of it – especially from the standpoint of the human pet situation I’ve created in The Pet Shop, is simply a need to be loved and adored, and to be able to trust someone enough to give up control to them.

Beauty and the Beast and my retelling of it in The Pet Shop are both about seeing the true nature of a person, with all their flaws and neuroses, and loving them anyway. But ultimately the story is also about trusting enough to allow oneself to be loved, and believing that one is worthy of love, warts, blemishes and all.

Excerpt:

‘I’m sorry, Tino,’ Stella shoved to her feet, tearing her gaze away from the gorgeously horny man sitting on the floor by her chair. ‘But I just can’t do this. If I had known what Anne – what Strigida – had planned for me, I would have never consented, surely Anne knew that. Anyway, I feel really bad that I’ve wasted your time, but this is just not something I can do.’

The pet only looked up at her with adoring and expectant eyes.

‘I’ll gladly give you taxi fare home, of course. I mean that’s the least I can do. None of this is your fault, after all. Anne told me that you were a gift, so I assume you’ve already been paid.’ She raced through the last sentence breathlessly, her face burning at the very thought that the company had paid for a prostitute for her.

Did they really think she was that desperate? And never mind how desperate she was, surely she had worked at Strigida long enough for them to realise this was not the gift for her. And she was bloody well certain Anne knew that. There would definitely be words when she returned from Bath. ‘Is that all right, if we do that? If we just call it even and I get you a cab home?’

Tino made no response. Instead, he rubbed his cheek affectionately against her leg and moved to sit back on his haunches, a position that made his erection look even more enormous, bulging heavily against his thigh. At the sight, her stomach muscles tensed low and tight and her pussy clenched and half convulsed.

‘I forgot,’ she looked down at the manual still gripped in one hand, ‘Pets don’t talk. But since I really don’t want a Pet, couldn’t you break the rules just this once?’

He brushed her leg again with his cheek, then with his lips, making delicious shivers run up her spine.

‘Guess not. OK. Well, I realise this is an awkward situation, Tino, and I’m really sorry about that. I know you’re expected to stay here. I appreciate your position. Really I do. I’m sure we’ll get through this if we work together.’ She nodded down the hall. ‘I have a guestroom. You’re welcome to sleep there. It’s small but comfortable.’ He followed her on silent feet, and looked on as she showed him the guestroom.

‘The closet’s there.’ She pointed. ‘Though I guess you won’t need that. Extra toiletries are on the dressing table there. Those you might need. And the remote for the telly, well it’s a little tetchy. Here let me show you.’ Suddenly she realised he wasn’t paying any attention. His gaze was locked on her – more specifically on her crotch. She blushed hard and forced a smile. ‘Never mind. I imagine you can figure it out if you decide you want to watch telly. Anyway, make yourself at home. Are you hungry? Can I get you something to drink?’

Again, he plopped down on the floor. This time he wrapped his arms around her leg and began to rub his cheek against her thigh.

‘Tino, really. I don’t think I can …’

He made little grunting sounds and shifted his hips forward and back. If anything, his erection seemed still bigger. She suddenly remembered the manual said the Pet Shop kept their Pets horny. Hadn’t Anne said he usually didn’t have to wait this long before he came?

She found herself blushing again at the sight of his heavy hard-on. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how … uncomfortable you must be. I know you’re not allowed to touch yourself unless your keeper gives you permission, and, well, since we can’t, since we’re not going to …’ She nodded to his cock. ‘It’s all right with me if you do what you need to do. You know, for some relief.’ She felt like her face would burst into flames.

For a long moment he looked up at her with his bottomless cinnamon eyes, as though he couldn’t quite comprehend what she wanted of him. Then, slowly, carefully, holding her gaze, he laid a hand against his cock and ran a curled palm up the length of it. A shudder ascended his spine. He threw back his head and released a trembling breath that ended in a deep animal groan at the back of his throat.

Almost before she realised it, she replied with a little whimper of her own that slipped between her lips. Her nipples pearled through the thin silk of her blouse, and her pussy felt slick and giddy. She closed her eyes only for a split second, but the next thing she knew, Tino was standing beside her, so close that her hand, resting low against her belly brushed his cock, and they both gasped at the feel of it. Before she could do more than marvel at the velvety softness that felt like it sheathed granite, he pushed in closer, and his large hand engulfed hers easing it gently against his cock with just enough pressure to encourage her fingers to wrap around the girth of him.

She should have stepped back, she should have commanded him to stay in the room and do what he needed to do and not come out until he was done. But she didn’t. Instead she curled her fingers around him and felt his hand tighten over hers. She expected him to hump like a dog, but he only stepped closer, engulfing her in a feral scent not unlike cat fur on a sunny day.

The shifting of his hips was almost invisible but for the tensing of the muscles low in his hard belly, tightening and lifting until his soft pubic curls just grazed the inside of her wrist. Instead of the blatant sexuality she expected, he simply laid his head on her shoulder, his warm breath raising the fine hair along the back of her neck. His heart hammered a heavy drumbeat that matched her own, and her nipples seemed to be pressing ever forward to get nearer to it.

His free arm encircled her, resting just above her hip, where his hand moved in a gentle caress up and down her ribs, almost tickling. The sensation of it all accumulated warm and heavy just below her belly. The heat of his lips rested close to the pulse of her neck. They were slightly parted, his breath coming in fast little puffs.

She knew she should be pushing him away, making him bend over for the spanking a misbehaving Pet deserved. She hadn’t asked him to touch her, and she hadn’t volunteered her services. ‘You’re a very naughty Pet, Tino.’ She barely managed to gasp before he tensed, and a strangled groan escaped his throat just as his cock twitched and she felt the silky slick heat of his come spill over both of their hands and against his bare belly. Then his whole body convulsed, and involuntarily he pulled her tight against him, an act which sent her into her own convulsions. She let out a startled cry. She hadn’t expected to come. She hadn’t intended to come, and yet there she stood quivering out her pleasure against the Pet, who held her in a powerful, sex-stimulated bear-hug.

As a great beginning to the new year, I’m very excited to announce another FREE taste of my critically acclaimed novel, The Pet Shop! Alongside the original novel, The Pet Shop is now being offered by Xcite in a limited Kindle three-part edition. The second part, The Secret Life of Pets, is once again available for FREE for five days on Amazon from the 16th of January through the 20th. And, since Xcite is only too aware that Pets are addicting, to help feed your addiction for hot kinky romance, Part One, The Gift, and Part Three, The Taming, are just £.77 each in the UK and $1.19 in the US.

(Just a quick reminder. If you’re an early bird on the other side of the Pond, the U.S. link may be available a few hours later than the UK link because of the time change.)

Here’s a little teaser of what you’ll find in The Secret Life of Pets. Download your copy FREE, and you’ll find out what the secret is.

Blurb:

Obsessed with finding out about Tino and his connection with Vincent Evanston, Stella enters the secret world of the Pet Shop in the only way possible, by becoming a Pet herself. As her animal lust awakens, Stella discovers the delicious crossover of the world of Pets and Keepers when Vincent takes her home as his Pet. But Stella wants the best of both worlds. Will she ever be able to have it?

Excerpt:

Stella was still struggling to make sense of it all when the door opened. She could see a silhouette darkened against the moonlit sky before the door closed, then there were footsteps across the complaining wood floor and the Boss knelt beside her with a leash, which he clipped into the D-ring of her collar and held her gaze. He stood without saying a word, and she stood next to him, her legs suddenly unsteady. Was she going to have sex with him? Not that he wasn’t an attractive man, but he was her boss and sex would add another complication she didn’t need. He led her out into the night, back along a narrow pavement, down a steep set of stairs and through a heavy wooden door.

Before she had a chance to get frightened, the Boss flipped on a light switch and a cavernous room immerged out of the shadow into details she failed to notice. Her whole attention was drawn to the pallet on the floor in the corner where Tino lay naked, blinking hard at the bright invasion on light-deprived pupils. He yawned and stretched and wiped sleep from his eyes. When he saw her, he came to his feet expectantly. As always, it was impossible for her not to notice his lovely penis, already at half-mast and rising. He laid a hand against it, not like he was about to masturbate, more like he was taking the reins of a powerful animal.

The Boss chuckled softly. ‘I can almost hear your fear and anger, Stella, and I assure you there’s no need for either. This is where Tino sleeps whenever he’s here. Not sure why he prefers the dungeon to far more plush places in which a Pet of his status could sleep. Perhaps because he spends so much time down here anyway being punished for bad behaviour, and I assure you, he gets far less than he deserves. He unhooked the leash and nodded toward the big Pet. ‘Go on. If the two of you were magnets it would be easier to keep him from you.’

It was all she could do to keep from crying out his name as he scooped her into his arms. Any further slippage of speech was stopped by Tino’s insistent mouth startling in its familiarity. Her throat tightened and her eyes welled, as he took her face between large hands and kissed her repeatedly, ravenously, as though he would never stop. But when he did, it was because they had both become once again aware that the Boss was still standing there, arms folded across his chest, watching.

When they stood staring at him expectantly, he pulled out a metal folding chair and sat down deliberately. ‘Oh, I’m not leaving, if that’s what you’re waiting for. I did scheme to get the two of you together, that’s true.’ He waved a hand. ‘And I expect you to do whatever nasty things your libidos drive you to, but I expect you to do them while I watch.’

He turned his gaze on Stella, whose insides suddenly twisted in a writhe of nerves. ‘My dear Stella, as a Pet, you’ll often be called upon by your keepers to perform sexually for them while they watch and have a wank.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes they only do that until they get up their courage to join in the fun. Other times they really are voyeurs and get off on the watching more than the doing.

‘Me, I don’t need courage to join in the fun, which I may well do if I choose. But after what happened between you two this morning, I haven’t had a minute’s peace imagining the fireworks that must happen when the two of you actually are allowed to fuck.’ He sighed happily and settled back into the chair as though it were the most comfy recliner. ‘All I need now is some popcorn. Consider this a part of your training, Stella, and who better to help you with your homework than someone who’s an old hand at it.’ He nodded to Tino.

She expected at least an awkward moment or two to adjust to the idea of fucking with an audience, but Tino simply ignored the Boss’s presence.He lifted her as though she were weightless and carried her back to his pallet.

Tis the season to give gifts, and The Gift of a very naughty Pet is an ideal holiday offering. I’m very pleased to announce that Xcite really have the Holiday spirit and are once again offering a free taste of my critically acclaimed novel, The Pet Shop! The first part of the limited edition Kindle trilogy, The Gift is available FREE for the next five days on Amazon beginning Wednesday 19th December. Xcite are very aware of just how addicting Pets can be, Part Two, The Secret Life of Pets, and Part Three, The Taming, are just £.77 each in the UK and $1.19 in the US. The only thing better than a naughty Pet of your very own is a FREE naughty Pet of your very own to help you get into the holiday spirit! If you want your Pets in an all-at-once, rough and tumble, you can still get the whole package of lusty, kinky Pet fun with the original.

The Gift Blurb:

In appreciation for a job well done, Stella James’s boss sends her a Pet – a human Pet. The mysterious Tino arrives equipped with a collar a leash and an erection, and Stella quickly learns that keeping Pets, especially this one, is extremely addictive. Will a chance meeting with reclusive philanthropist, Vincent Evanston, who looks an awful lot like Tino, but couldn’t be more different, double Stella’s pleasure or just be double trouble?

AboutThe Pet Shop

The Pet Shop is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In part, the theme of the story is our effort to understand the beast that lives within all of us, to tame it and make it acceptable to polite company. Of course in the taming of anything wild we run the risk of losing that wildness that compelled us to love it in the first place. The Pet Shop explores the effort to find a balance between the two.

I’ve always been fascinated with our animal nature, and I’ve often wondered how much of that nature is ancestral behaviours reasserting themselves and how much of it – especially from the standpoint of the human pet situation I’ve created in The Pet Shop, is simply a need to be loved and adored, and to be able to trust someone enough to give up control to them.

Beauty and the Beast and my retelling of it in The Pet Shop are both about seeing the true nature of a person, with all their flaws and neuroses, and loving them anyway. But ultimately the story is also about trusting enough to allow oneself to be loved, and believing that one is worthy of love, warts, blemishes and all.

Excerpt:

‘I’m sorry, Tino,’ Stella shoved to her feet, tearing her gaze away from the gorgeously horny man sitting on the floor by her chair. ‘But I just can’t do this. If I had known what Anne – what Strigida – had planned for me, I would have never consented, surely Anne knew that. Anyway, I feel really bad that I’ve wasted your time, but this is just not something I can do.’

The pet only looked up at her with adoring and expectant eyes.

‘I’ll gladly give you taxi fare home, of course. I mean that’s the least I can do. None of this is your fault, after all. Anne told me that you were a gift, so I assume you’ve already been paid.’ She raced through the last sentence breathlessly, her face burning at the very thought that the company had paid for a prostitute for her.

Did they really think she was that desperate? And never mind how desperate she was, surely she had worked at Strigida long enough for them to realise this was not the gift for her. And she was bloody well certain Anne knew that. There would definitely be words when she returned from Bath. ‘Is that all right, if we do that? If we just call it even and I get you a cab home?’

Tino made no response. Instead, he rubbed his cheek affectionately against her leg and moved to sit back on his haunches, a position that made his erection look even more enormous, bulging heavily against his thigh. At the sight, her stomach muscles tensed low and tight and her pussy clenched and half convulsed.

‘I forgot,’ she looked down at the manual still gripped in one hand, ‘Pets don’t talk. But since I really don’t want a Pet, couldn’t you break the rules just this once?’

He brushed her leg again with his cheek, then with his lips, making delicious shivers run up her spine.

‘Guess not. OK. Well, I realise this is an awkward situation, Tino, and I’m really sorry about that. I know you’re expected to stay here. I appreciate your position. Really I do. I’m sure we’ll get through this if we work together.’ She nodded down the hall. ‘I have a guestroom. You’re welcome to sleep there. It’s small but comfortable.’ He followed her on silent feet, and looked on as she showed him the guestroom.

‘The closet’s there.’ She pointed. ‘Though I guess you won’t need that. Extra toiletries are on the dressing table there. Those you might need. And the remote for the telly, well it’s a little tetchy. Here let me show you.’ Suddenly she realised he wasn’t paying any attention. His gaze was locked on her – more specifically on her crotch. She blushed hard and forced a smile. ‘Never mind. I imagine you can figure it out if you decide you want to watch telly. Anyway, make yourself at home. Are you hungry? Can I get you something to drink?’

Again, he plopped down on the floor. This time he wrapped his arms around her leg and began to rub his cheek against her thigh.

‘Tino, really. I don’t think I can …’

He made little grunting sounds and shifted his hips forward and back. If anything, his erection seemed still bigger. She suddenly remembered the manual said the Pet Shop kept their Pets horny. Hadn’t Anne said he usually didn’t have to wait this long before he came?

She found herself blushing again at the sight of his heavy hard-on. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how … uncomfortable you must be. I know you’re not allowed to touch yourself unless your keeper gives you permission, and, well, since we can’t, since we’re not going to …’ She nodded to his cock. ‘It’s all right with me if you do what you need to do. You know, for some relief.’ She felt like her face would burst into flames.

For a long moment he looked up at her with his bottomless cinnamon eyes, as though he couldn’t quite comprehend what she wanted of him. Then, slowly, carefully, holding her gaze, he laid a hand against his cock and ran a curled palm up the length of it. A shudder ascended his spine. He threw back his head and released a trembling breath that ended in a deep animal groan at the back of his throat.

Almost before she realised it, she replied with a little whimper of her own that slipped between her lips. Her nipples pearled through the thin silk of her blouse, and her pussy felt slick and giddy. She closed her eyes only for a split second, but the next thing she knew, Tino was standing beside her, so close that her hand, resting low against her belly brushed his cock, and they both gasped at the feel of it. Before she could do more than marvel at the velvety softness that felt like it sheathed granite, he pushed in closer, and his large hand engulfed hers easing it gently against his cock with just enough pressure to encourage her fingers to wrap around the girth of him.

She should have stepped back, she should have commanded him to stay in the room and do what he needed to do and not come out until he was done. But she didn’t. Instead she curled her fingers around him and felt his hand tighten over hers. She expected him to hump like a dog, but he only stepped closer, engulfing her in a feral scent not unlike cat fur on a sunny day.

The shifting of his hips was almost invisible but for the tensing of the muscles low in his hard belly, tightening and lifting until his soft pubic curls just grazed the inside of her wrist. Instead of the blatant sexuality she expected, he simply laid his head on her shoulder, his warm breath raising the fine hair along the back of her neck. His heart hammered a heavy drumbeat that matched her own, and her nipples seemed to be pressing ever forward to get nearer to it.

His free arm encircled her, resting just above her hip, where his hand moved in a gentle caress up and down her ribs, almost tickling. The sensation of it all accumulated warm and heavy just below her belly. The heat of his lips rested close to the pulse of her neck. They were slightly parted, his breath coming in fast little puffs.

She knew she should be pushing him away, making him bend over for the spanking a misbehaving Pet deserved. She hadn’t asked him to touch her, and she hadn’t volunteered her services. ‘You’re a very naughty Pet, Tino.’ She barely managed to gasp before he tensed, and a strangled groan escaped his throat just as his cock twitched and she felt the silky slick heat of his come spill over both of their hands and against his bare belly. Then his whole body convulsed, and involuntarily he pulled her tight against him, an act which sent her into her own convulsions. She let out a startled cry. She hadn’t expected to come. She hadn’t intended to come, and yet there she stood quivering out her pleasure against the Pet, who held her in a powerful, sex-stimulated bear-hug.

I love Blissemas because it’s always an opportunity to share the best bits of winter and the holiday season with friends, new and old. Of cours there’s the excitement of giving and recieving gifts, and this year’s Blissemas gift is a biggie — a Kindle Fire! Follow the Blissemas link for the details.

Every year in early December, something wonderful happens in our back garden. The wagtails return! We’ve had a pair of pied wagtails over-wintering with us for the past four years now. I’d like to think they come because they’ve developed a warm spot in their little birdie hearts for us, but I know they really come for the shredded cheese.

Wagtails are insectivores, and these two lovelies, whether they are the original pair who first visited us on that dreadful winter four years ago or some of their descendants, have probably come down from Scandinavia to winter here in South England. They come here because there are certain kinds of insects that survive in the moss on the roofs of the houses and every time the temperature warms slightly, they come out briefly. It’s a day to day existence for the wagtails, and I can’t imagine how any of them actually survive, so I put out shredded cheese, which they love.

I associate Christmas with a huge influx of birds in our back garden, and it’s a time when I feel closer them and am more sensitive to their needs. Though food is the obvious need – fat balls for the general population, mixed seeds and nuts for the tits and doves, currants for the blackbirds and of course shredded cheese for the wagtails (though the starlings and the magpies also love the cheese and currants) the big draw during the coldest days of winter is the birdbaths. People might not realise birds have no source of fresh water when everything is frozen. Imagine nothing to drink when the weather is cold, no place to bathe.

Every morning, as soon as it’s light enough to see, we go out and fill all the feeders, spread currants and cheese for the blackbird and the wagtails and then we tend to the two birdbaths, clearing out the ice with hot water. When that’s done we go in to have our own breakfast. Our dining table is in front of sliding glass doors that look out into the back garden, so every morning during the bleakest days of winter, we are rewarded with an feeding frenzy and a pool party.

We live in a wonderful symbiosis with our avian friends. We keep food and water available for them throughout the coldest darkest times and in turn we’re rewarded with a close-up and personal view of the natural world we wouldn’t otherwise get. The blackbird perches on the retaining wall and stares in the window at us if there are no currants for him. The wagtails show up out of nowhere when they hear us filling feeders. They’ve learned there’ll be cheese.

Through December, we’re all waiting for the daylight, waiting for the sun to return. We’re all waiting and longing for light and warmth and new beginnings. Through those darkest months, I marvel at how the birds survive the bleak harsh days when there seems to be nothing for them to eat, nothing for them to drink. I know that lots of them don’t survive. I know that when the temperature dips below zero, whether or not they survive the night can depend upon how much they’ve been able to forage the day before. The difference between survival and death is such a fine line. And every year I’m astounded and amazed by their tenacity, by their will to survive the dark days.

In the spring, the wagtails go back to Scandinavia to breed and the bird population in our back garden changes, and the dynamic changes. We get fledgling starlings and blackbirds and the whole garden becomes a nursery for the next generation. But there’s something magical about those winter months, the dark cold days, the times when the closeness I feel is a deep admiration for the ebb and flow, for the push to hang on one more season, for the deep powerful urge to survive and bring forth the next generation. I watch the starlings fluttering in wild abandon in the birdbaths, the water freezing on the edges even as they bathe. I watch the wagtails and the blackbirds treading frozen ground, eating cheese and currants, their feathers fluffed to nearly twice their body size to keep warm, and I feel that somehow, I’ve become a part of something so much greater than myself and my little understanding of the world. This is the gift I receive every year in the dead of winter, and it’s a gift that I treasure long after the sun has returned and the Dawn Chorus has begun in earnest and the wagtails have flown north.

Happy Holidays, everyone! May all the gifts you give and receive be gifts that touch the heart.

And my Gift to you all is a free Kindle download of THE GIFT, Part one of the Trilogy version of The Pet Shop.